This grow out frag will be going into one of my shallow acrylic tanks.
Aquarium- Acrylic and about 120 gallons
Filteration-Moded Coralife skimmer with Reef Octopus needle wheel pump.
Circulation-Maxi Jet 1,500 Gallon Per Hour Circ Pump and the good old Koralia 750 gallon I believe for a total of 2,250GPH. I aim to get better flow soon this tank soon enough though.
Daily\Weekly additions-Activated Carbon, carbon dosing, 3 part dosing BRS style, variety of frozen foods for the fish and coral gumbo.
Fish- bi color angel, coral beauty angel, pair of percula clowns, and an algae blenny.
Lighting- the new Reefi LED for 12 hours on and 12 hours off.

PH 8
KH 9-10 I don't want it this high and aim to let it lower some before dosing again.
Calcium 500 comments same as KH above
Magnesium 1500
Ammonia 0
Nitrites 0
Nitrates 5-10

Side Shot

And Top Down X)

I have a total of two polyps to start with...Actually I had four but I cut mine in half to make sure my friend Lex got to participate as well as I. It was my system that they got blown around in any ways. maybe they will show up...

Maybe not :(

There is 300 pounds of rock in the system as well so who know where those polyps are.

A little over a month ago there was a thread that had some mentioning of wanting to do an LPS for a grow out instead the SPS or zoanthids that had been previously done. LPS is a big category, so it took me a while thinking about it to really narrow things down. At first I wanted to do some form of favia or closed brain but those can be aggressive. Then I was tempted by the beautiful extravagant chalices that are too spendy for any one person, but those grow slower than molasses. Oh what to do...

I needed something with some color, not too hard to keep and not something too common...
A trip to The Premium Aquarium and a long chat with Garret and then Chris got me thinking straight!
I got the full run down of possible candidates and believe me there was no shortage, brains, chalices, acans, and euphyllias. But what finally got my attention and really got me thinking was this beautiful purple gonipopora. Actually there was a few purple gonis there but this one was bright purple and white, with a true flower pot look, not one of those encrusters.

This picture is with flash on, the goni in the back ground is the same just without as much warm white light from the camera. Look at those purples.

These are beauties thats for sure.

Lots of motion with these too.
When I first acquired these chunks they were slow to transition to home tank life, you know how some of those finicky gonioporas can be, but over the last few weeks they have really started to perk up. I think these are going to be a reasonably hardy variety once all is said and done.
With those fat and juicy polyps.

SO, any body here want to try their hands at another grow out contest!?
I have a feeling this one won't be quite as temperamental as the acropora, but you never know, each tank is a little different. Grand prize winner will be seeing some fine TPA corals in the end, second place through 13th will get to keep their prize purple gonis, and last places will get the intricate bleached white skeleton of their entry frag..Its a win win all around!